Can a worthwhile exchange be set up between the seemingly opposing viewpoints of psychoanalytic therapy and cognitive science? Stein and the other contributing authors of Cognitive Science and the Unconscious say yes. In fact, it is their contention that such an interchange of theory and method -- combining the theoretical clarity and empirical rigor of cognitive science with the richness and complexity of clinical work -- holds the promise of enriching both disciplines. The concept of unconsciousness, as variously conceived by psychoanalysis ("The Unconscious") and cognitive science ("unconscious processing"), is the reference point of this dialogue. Written by a distinguished group of researchers and clinicians, this volume examines those aspects of the unconscious mind most relevant to the psychiatric practitioner, including unconscious processing of affective and traumatic experience, unconscious mechanisms in dissociative states and disorders, and cognitive approaches to dreaming and repression. Although cognitive psychology forms the backbone of the book, many of the chapters illuminate relevant work from the fields of artificial intelligence, linguistics, and biology.

The Unconscious explores the critical interdisciplinary dialogue between psychoanalysis and contemporary cognitive neuroscience. Characterised by Freud as ‘the science of the unconscious mind’, psychoanalysis has traditionally been viewed as a solely psychological discipline. However recent developments in neuroscience, such as the use of neuroimaging techniques to investigate the working brain, have stimulated and intensified the dialogue between psychoanalysis and these related mental sciences. This book explores the relevance of these discussions for our understanding of unconscious mental processes. Chapters present clinical case studies of unconscious dynamics, alongside theoretical and scientific papers in key areas of current debate and development. These include discussions of the differences between conceptualisations of ‘the unconscious’ in psychoanalysis and cognitive science, whether the core concepts of psychoanalysis are still plausible in light of recent findings, and how such understandings of the unconscious are still relevant to treating patients in psychotherapy today. These questions are explored by leading interdisciplinary researchers as well as practising psychoanalysts and psychotherapists. This book aims to bridge the gap between psychoanalysis and cognitive neuroscience, to enable a better understanding of researchers’ and clinicians’ engagements with the key topic of the unconscious. It will be of key interest to researchers, academics and postgraduate students in the fields of psychoanalysis, cognitive science, neuroscience and traumatology. It will also appeal to practising psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and clinicians.

Weaving together state-of-the-art research, theory, and clinical insights, this book provides a new understanding of the unconscious and its centrality in human functioning. The authors review heuristics, implicit memory, implicit learning, attribution theory, implicit motivation, automaticity, affective versus cognitive salience, embodied cognition, and clinical theories of unconscious functioning. They integrate this work with cognitive neuroscience views of the mind to create an empirically supported model of the unconscious. Arguing that widely used psychotherapies--including both psychodynamic and cognitive approaches--have not kept pace with current science, the book identifies promising directions for clinical practice. Winner--American Board and Academy of Psychoanalysis Book Prize (Theory)

Sunny Auyang tackles what she calls "the large pictures of the human mind," exploring the relevance of cognitive science findings to everyday mental life. Auyang proposes a model of an "open mind emerging from the self-organization of infrastructures," which she opposes to prevalent models that treat mind as a disembodied brain or computer, subject to the control of external agents such as neuroscientists and programmers. Although cognitive science has obtained abundant data on neural and computational processes, it barely explains such ordinary experiences as recognizing faces, feeling pain, or remembering the past. In this book Sunny Auyang tackles what she calls "the large pictures of the human mind," exploring the relevance of cognitive science findings to everyday mental life. Auyang proposes a model of an "open mind emerging from the self-organization of infrastructures," which she opposes to prevalent models that treat mind as a disembodied brain or computer, subject to the control of external agents such as neuroscientists and programmers. Her model consists of three parts: (1) the open mind of our conscious life; (2) mind's infrastructure, the unconscious processes studied by cognitive science; and (3) emergence, the relation between the open mind and its infrastructure. At the heart of Auyang's model is the mind that opens to the world and makes it intelligible. A person with an open mind feels, thinks, recognizes, believes, doubts, anticipates, fears, speaks, and listens, and is aware of I, together with it and thou. Cognitive scientists refer to the "binding problem," the question of how myriad unconscious processes combine into the unity of consciousness. Auyang approaches the problem from the other end—by starting with everyday experience rather than with the mental infrastructure. In so doing, she shows both how analyses of experiences can help to advance cognitive science and how cognitive science can help us to understand ourselves as autonomous subjects.

There are many ways to approach the understanding of consciousness. Questions about these ways have occupied philosophers and metaphysicians for centuries. During the early growth of cognitive science the problem of consciousness remained taboo, but an increasing number of studies have either implicitly or explicitly begun to bear on its nature. These have been inspired by a number of different different original questions, and focus on a variety of different empirical phenomena. Thus, studies of implicit memory, subliminal processing, strategic versus automatic processing, allocation of attention, and differences between information processes in the awake versus dreaming state all share a common assumption of a particular quality or state -- awakeness, awareness, alertness, namely consciousness -- that somehow can be distinguished from another type of state or states in which the subject is not aware of the information being processed. What distinguishes the cognitive psychological and cognitive neuroscience approach to the question of consciousness from that of philosophy and metaphysics is scientific methodology: a set of tools that permit the empirical study of a phenomenon in an objective and reproducible way. Recent developments in both the empirical and theoretical methodologies of these fields have made it possible to begin to study the phenomenon associated with -- if not directly underlying -- consciousness in a scientific fashion. This volume tries to resolve the difficulties associated with the scientific investigation of consciousness. The intent is to explore the extent to which consciousness can be the target of direct scientific inquiry, to get on the table some of the relevant work, and consider the degree to which this research can help inform our understanding of consciousness. It brings together a group of cognitive and neuroscientists to share relevant recent research in the fields of cognitive science and neuroscience and to determine whether any new strategies for the scientific pursuit of this question can be developed. A long-term goal is the development of a unified understanding of consciousness, scientific as well as philosophical perspectives. This volume takes the first step toward building the necessary local bridges.

Bernard Baars suggests a way to specify empirical constraints on a theory of consciousness by contrasting well-established conscious phenomena with comparable unconscious ones, such as stimulus representations known to be preperceptual, unattended or habituated. By adducing data to show that consciousness is associated with a kind of workplace in the nervous system, Baars helps clarify the problem.

This collection of 20 original chapters by leading researchers examines the cognitive unconscious from social, cognitive, and neuroscientific viewpoints, presenting some of the most important developments at the heart of the new picture of the unconscious.